Are You Listening Now?

By Bud Koenemund

For America

As people of color complained about

Jobs, housing, police, and education,

You deflected their issues while touting

401Ks; stock market inflation:

A rising tide that failed to lift all boats.

You fucked the poor as the rich got bigger;

Even schemed at ways to erase their votes,

Yet wonder why anger has been triggered.

You objected when they knelt peacefully –

For Trayvon, Eric, Ahmaud, George, and more –

Insisting “They should have been respectful!”

While wanting protests easy to ignore.

   Tonight, cities burn, and people lie bowed;

   America, are you listening now?

I Make No Secret of My Desire

By Bud Koenemund

For Lindsay

My mind, Lady, I do confess, is filled –
Both awake and in slumber – with fantasies;
Visions erotic from morn through star gilt
Night – illusions bending sanity
Toward madness – dreams that, while wanton, reveal
Subconscious adoration. This lust bears
Certain truth; passion cannot be concealed
For one with whom only Venus compares.
I make no secret of my desire;
A longing, concupiscent to be sure;
Yet, in faith, ‘tis zeal tempered by fire;
Sin purged through the flames, leaving purity.
   But, will transgression be called blasphemy,
   When praising a Goddess in ecstasy?